The truth is, your voice can become part of your brand by choice or by accident.  Your voice comes through on your website, sales letter, email messages, and blog posts.

But you often notice it more when you’re getting ready to tell a story.

.The way you tell a story often comes closer to the Real You than the way you promote an idea or share facts. When you’re sharing facts, that’s what people hear: the facts. They don’t hear your voice. They don’t care how you present the facts unless you’re unclear and the facts are murky.

Here are 3 ways to recognize and develop your own storytelling voice.

1 – Look at the email messages you receive from others and identify your most favorite and least favorite.

Which ones do you enjoy? Which ones set your teeth on edge so you keeping thinking, “I really should unsubscribe…”

You’ll most likely see a pattern.

Do you resonate more with down-to-earth, conversational, straightforward messages? Or breezy, super-cool messages with lots of offbeat metaphors and strong language?

2 – Practice writing as a character.

Writing for AppSumo, Neville Medhora built his style around the Sumo logo – the big Sumo wrestler cartoon. He created a character who was fat, brash, and politically incorrect. He kidnapped people to convince them to give the “Sumo-lings” a better deal.

So Neville could write playfully, “I currently have Drew Houston of Dropbox tied up in the trunk of my car…..and won’t let him out till he gives the Sumo-lings 85% off a year subscription to DropBox.”

Here Neville’s brand inspired his voice — and vice versa.

You can practice by writing in the style of characters in movies or television programs. Or you can create a character or persona and write from their perspective.

3 – Listen to the voices of your favorite clients.

Are they breathless or thoughtful? Do they speak slowly or a mile a minute? Do they have accents? Do they tell a lot of jokes? Punctuate their conversations with colorful language?

Skip the stereotypes. Some people over 50 – and over 80! – swear like sailors. Some young people – and young sailors – speak in thoughtful, measured tones and frown on four-letter words.

What phrases come up repeatedly in their conversations?

When asked, “Did you just get back from downtown?” they might answer, “I sure did!” or, “I did,” or, “You betcha.”

Finally… 

(1) Don’t worry if your voice is different from other peoples. Not everybody likes the light-hearted, breezy, funny copy laced with words I can’t use in an email system.

Most audiences respond well to humor, and most aren’t thrilled with somber pessimistic tones.  But some will favor a “just the facts ma’am” style and others will want you to embellish with personal touches.

Second,  you may not recognize your voice out of context. More than once, a client has asked me to please incorporate a specific paragraph, word-for-word, into a sales letter.

Every time I’ve followed instructions, they’ve come back with, “Where did you get that paragraph? You’ve got the tone all wrong! I’d never say that.”

Finally, when you’ve got a strong message, your readers and listeners aren’t paying a lot of attention to your voice. They’re so intently focused on “What’s in it for me?” they’re not noticing the package. They just hear “benefit….benefit…REAL benefit.”

Sometimes you need an outsider’s perspective to develop your brand and your writing voice. My one-time Power Hour consultations help you find answers without committing to long-term coaching or copywriting.  Click here to learn more and sign up.

One afternoon, I got a call from a woman in California—someone well-known in her field. Her assistant patched her through, and she opened with friendly energy:

“Cathy, I’m going to be in your city in a few weeks. Why don’t we meet for coffee? I’d love to learn more about your business!”

I was just about to book her into my calendar when she added:

“What is the nature of your business? What do you offer to clients?”

Ouch.

That question stopped me cold. Why was she reaching out if she didn’t even know what I do? Did she visit my website? Skim my LinkedIn profile? Assign her assistant to do five minutes of research?

Suppose she’d opened with: 

• “I see you offer copywriting services for solopreneurs. Maybe you could give a workshop for my clients.”
• “You emphasize storytelling. My clients want to sell with stories but they don’t know where to start! Could I introduce you to them?”
• “I’d like to promote your products as an affiliate. I’d like to ask you some questions first.’

Here’s the bottom line: Professionals are prepared.

They know their audience. They guard their time. They respect your time. They’ve done their homework before they reach out. They don’t show up hoping you’ll make the connection for them.

I see this all the time when I get podcast guest requests. People pitch talks about marketing for major brands—tech giants, soft drinks, sportswear.  But my listeners run service-based businesses. They’re coaches, consultants and freelancers.  They aren’t trying to be the next cola company. They’re trying to find clients, build trust, and sell their services in a crowded market.

If you want to connect,  don’t make me do the work. Explain the connection. Tell me why you’re a good fit. I may get so enthused I’ll move you right in!

A manager I once knew had a favorite saying:
“Show up dressed and ready to play.”

We all got tired of hearing it. But he was right. Professionals are prepared and prepared people are winners.

If you want to be one of them, start with your story.
Get three stories ready—before you talk to your next prospect or client.
Download my ebook with directions and templates. Click here. Just $9 and you’ve got it.
Click here to get your copy.

An opening is the first paragraph that appears right after the headline or sub-headline. It’s sometimes called a hook because that’s what it does: it hooks readers and motivates them to stay on the page.

Your opening might be

… a startling fact: “The rules of managing money have changed in the last six months.”

… a pull question: “Are you ready for …”

… the first sentence of a story: “It wasn’t so long ago. I was working as a productivity coach. As part of my coaching, I would ask my clients, ‘What’s your morning ritual?'”

There’s one opening that can be especially tricky.

“If you’re on this page, you’re probably searching for a …”

Or, “You’re probably looking for someone to show you the best way to save for retirement…”

Or we might see a variation without the “probably:”

“You’re looking for someone to dig deeply for the real reason people choose your brand.”

This “we assume” opening needs to be used with care because you’re telling your reader’s story. If you know your audience well, your readers will recognize themselves. They’ll say enthusiastically, “That’s my story!”

But when you impose your own story on your audience, you can get pushback.

One relationship coach sent an email marketing message that began, “I bet you’re looking for a new relationship!” One of her readers posted on social media, “I’ve been happily married to the same person for thirty years. That was a quick unsubscribe.”

It’s like a friend saying, “You’re probably going to be watching the football game on Monday,” when you loathe sports and are more likely to attend the opera.

You can also attract the wrong audience.

Recently I got an invitation to attend a networking event. The organizer wrote, “If you are hesitant about attending, answer this simple question: Aren’t you tired of networking that fails to produce results? At [our event], expect to leave with a new contact that just might turn into a client or business partner for years to come.”

Now as it happens, I really enjoy networking. But I’m not sure I want to go and meet people who are tired of attending networking events! Maybe they’re just not good networkers.

Besides, does the organizer really want to fill a room with people who are worn out with networking? I suspect not.

So what can you do instead?

The simple fix: Replace assumptions with questions, hypotheticals, and multiple scenarios.

That’s why many copywriters begin by asking, “Can you relate to these scenarios?”

Hypotheticals read like this:

If you’re an entrepreneur and you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by all you have to do, you may have been advised to hire an accountability coach.

Or they present exemplar scenarios, as I do on this sales page for my Become A Copywriter course:

Mary, who’s bored to tears with tech writing and wondering if she’s creative enough to write sales copy

Bill, who’s had it up to here with life in the corporate cube, and wants to start copywriting “on the side” as the first step to self-employed freedom

Suzanne, who’s done some copywriting and can’t figure out how to expand into a full-time, lucrative business

Or they identify their target in a straightforward way.  “This message is for you if you’re ready to find your soulmate.” That way you politely exclude the readers who found a soulmate, or who feel their cat is all the soulmate they want right now. You honor the reality that not everyone will share this story.

Learn more ways to enter the conversation in your prospect’s mind with my free report, “Nail Your Client’s Backstory.”  Click here for immediate access.

“Behind every successful business is a good story.”

But that’s just the beginning. Many people do not realize that Walt Disney was a teller of tales, not a creator of stories.

These days as a marketer you’re trying to reach an audience that’s already feeling overwhelmed. More and more, they’ve also heard a lot of stories.

Starting with a good story — a story that supports your business strategy — is just the beginning. You have to communicate your story.

I’ve seen some compelling, suspenseful stories presented like paragraphs from a badly written college textbook. And I’ve seen good-enough stories presented so enthusiastically, the audience hung on every word — and remembered the speaker, too.

How does one become a good storyteller? What are small nuances that turn a story from so-so to suspenseful? What are must-have standards? What extremely positive examples must be taken as inspiration?

These 7 techniques will help you get started as you seek to tell stories that will get your audience to say, “Tell me more!”

(1) Make Your Story Come Alive.

Many writing courses emphasize the “Show, don’t tell” rule, especially in any kind of narrative writing. Your challenge is to help the reader feel they’re living an experience, not listening passively.

So instead of, “He was clumsy,” you say, “He banged into the table and knocked over a chair.” You go heavy on action words, description, and details and light on the adjectives and adverbs.

(2) Don’t be too easy on your hero.

Unlike the classical “beginning, middle, and end” stories, marketing stories begin with a problem.

But to keep your audience engaged, marketing stories need to incorporate an element that’s common to most good stories: conflict.

Here’s a story from Gloria, a home schooling mom:

I’ve stayed home with my own kids since my first son was born ten weeks early. It took a LOT of time for me to prepare preschool activities for my boys.

“When I started home-schooling, I would spend at least 4 hours prepping each day. I was totally exhausted and frazzled by noon…and was getting by on just a few hours’ sleep. My husband and my other kids were feeling neglected.

“People told me to forget about homeschooling and send my son to a regular school…”

That’s the first conflict. Gloria had a second conflict:

“Even when I found an activity they loved, I still wondered if it was the right activity to support their educational development. Or was it just a fun way to spend some time together?”

When I first heard the story, I found myself wondering: “Will Gloria find an answer? Did she give up?” And I don’t even have kids.

(3) Think like a mystery writer.

Fans of murder mysteries will recognize this pattern. Around page 240 the hero seems to solve the mystery. As a reader, you start to relax and wait for the fun part of wrapping everything up.

But you’ve got another 75 pages to go. That’s way too long to celebrate the victory.

Sure enough, just as you and the hero get ready to say “The End,” the author introduces a twist.

You thought the butler did it, but he’s got an airtight alibi. And the heroine’s boyfriend is acting mighty suspicious.

From our earlier example: Gloria found a solution to her son’s learning needs…

but now she faces a new plot twist: How do you adapt this popular Montessori program — designed for groups of children nursery schools — to the chaotic home environment of a busy mom?

After you solve the first problem, you’ve got an even tougher problem…and that’s the story that sells.

(4) Replace “Get Personal” with “Relate To Your Audience.”

Recently a business owner told a rather long story about the insights she’d achieved at a yoga retreat in one of those five-figure cruises to a South Seas destination.

Her whole life was transformed. Events that would have turned her into a nail-biting mess now leave her calm and confident.

But will this story resonate with her readers?

This type of retreat isn’t just expensive. It requires a level of intensity, commitment, and fitness that will be beyond the level of many readers.

I’m currently trying to do yoga myself, via online classes. I go for the easy poses and plan to stay at the beginner level for the rest of my life. So the story held some relevance.

A year ago? I wouldn’t have gotten past the first sentence.

(5) Get your audience involved.

During a traditional theatre presentation, the actors rarely try to break the fourth wall. You can bring your audience into your business story with lines like, “Imagine you were looking over my shoulder.”

Or, “Picture yourself on an airplane and I’m sitting in the seat next to yours.”

(6) Create empathetic characters.

There’s no stock formula for characters, beyond having a protagonist. An adversary

adds interest. You can engage your audience by providing details about the characters and giving them distinct personalities.

When you’re the hero of your own story, you have to present yourself as likeable — not a know-it-all, not someone preaching to your audience from a superior position.

Here’s a tip: Create heroes who resemble your ideal client.

If you want to work with financial planners on designing websites, make the hero a financial planner who needs a website.

(7) Commit to your characters with dialogue.

If you want to work with moms of young children, make the hero a mom and give her some kids with carefully chosen ages and temperaments. Do you teach moms how to handle kids who resist parenting…help them get their angelic brilliant children into Ivy League schools?

Dialogue makes your character come alive. When you change your tone and vocal style to match the characters, you show commitment to your characters. Ideally, your audience will recognize “Uncle Jim” and “Harry the business owner” just by their speaking style.

Dialogue grabs attention, whether written or spoken. You don’t need to be funny. You can be dramatic, serious or playful.

Bonus tip: Use stories that reinforce your brand.

Business owners can feel pressured by the advice to, “Tell a story…any story!” So they create a story that’s entertaining but doesn’t support their brand..

Tell stories in a style that will match your brand.

Your brand evolves as your business grows. You’ll need to find new stories to match your new brand.

I hope you can apply at least one of these tips in the near future. When you do, please drop me a line and let me know what you did. What was your audience’s reaction? How did you benefit?

Most of these tips come from my Amazon Kindle book, Grow Your Business One Story At A Time. You can download it here.

Check out my course – How to give a memorable 5-minute talk.

Alas, I was not. I was a wuss and a wimp. I could have won awards for “Most Creative Excuse To Escape Gym Classes” in school. So I’m thrilled every time someone says, “I can tell you work out.”

The Copywriting Fitness Test

Copywriting also can be strong or weak. Some copywriting seems ready to run a marathon and some seems downright wimpy. How do you tell the difference?

Spot A Wimpy Landing Page As Soon As You Open Your Browser

The unmistakeable sign of a wimpy page is vagueness – the copywriting equivalent of flabby muscles.

You see promises like, “Step up to the next level!” instead of, “Let’s explore your unique gifts and discover how you can maximize your potential (without adding new stress to your life.”

You see questions like, “Are you ready for more authentic relationships?” instead of, “Would you like to get the secret key to better relationships when you’re a solitude-loving introvert who has fantasies of living on a desert island?”

You can spot a REALLY wimpy landing page when you ask the question: “How many other marketers could use the same copy and make the same claims?”

The smaller the number, the stronger the copy.  Strong copy seems to be written with just one business owner in mind.

So how can you get build muscles into your landing page?

Begin by looking for your client’s backstory – also called your baggage story.

In his book Tell To Win, Peter Guber demonstrates the impact of a customer’s story.

A producer needed to get Alice Walker’s approval to produce her book, The Color Purple, as a stage play.  Alice was the customer; the producer was, in a real sense, doing the selling.

Guber coached the producer to expect resistance. Alice had gotten a negative backlash from the black community after her book was produced as a movie. The producer needed to address Alice’s backstory — not directly, but with a new story.

That’s the kind of backstory you need to reach prospects. You start with their pain or problem…but then you dig into the layers that create resistance.

Just as Alice Walker had bad experiences with a previous producer, clients come to you with baggage: good and bad experiences with other service businesses.

So let’s say you’re ready to craft your message and write the copy. Those steps require you to enter the conversation. They’re sharing their experiences and expectations. Now it’s your opportunity – and challenge – to respond.

Learn more with this free guide to understanding your clients- https://cathygoodwin.com/baggage

Download my course – Nail your client’s motivation to buy. 

All too often business owners find they’re paying more to write their own than they would if they hired a professional copywriter. They’re down to the wire and realize they just don’t have time or energy to write another 10 pieces of copy for that launch. And now they’re delayed.

When you delay launching a program because you don’t have time to write the copy, you’re actually paying yourself far more than you’d pay a professional copywriter. When you delay till the last minute, you’re scrounging to find a copywriter (our schedules fill up!) and you’re under pressure.

Here’s why you may do better to hire a copywriter than to DIY.

(1) Copywriting is a skill. It’s not like writing a brochure, business letter, a technical report or user manual.

You may have solid expertise in financial services, consulting, legal services, tech, mental health or medicine. But copywriters are experts in planning and writing to persuade your best prospects to become your own clients.

Learning this skill can take years. Fine-tuning the skill takes even longer. Copywriting styles change over time. They vary by purpose and by field. It’s difficult — probably impossible — to keep up if this isn’t your full-time job.

Copywriters write persuasively every day. So most likely we can complete the project faster…and we have tips to make the copy more persuasive without getting sales-y or pushy.

Copywriters also bring a fresh perspective to your business writing. If you’re a lawyer, it may be tempting to sound like all the other lawyers out there. But a copywriter can suggest an approach so you’ll stand out, especially if you’re a small firm, without sounding pushy or sales-y.

(2) Copywriting attracts traffic. I’m not talking about esoteric SEO techniques, which are overrated. Your copywriter should understand things like backlinks (used to be good, now they’re bad), keywords (use judiciously) and more. You’ll most likely get more traffic without effort when we post copy that is high quality, targeted, and easy to read.

To optimize your business blog, your copywriter will take a few basic steps that anyone can use. Research your keywords. Optimize each post rather than the blog as a whole. Choose just ONE category per post (I’ve heard pro and con on this one, but the “one category” rule makes sense).

Your website will attract traffic when it’s organized, well-written and consistent with your other online writing. More important, it’s not enough just to generate traffic to your website. A copywriter will help you turn your inbound traffic into leads and then sales.

(3)  Copywriting isn’t just wordsmithing. Copywriters have to know what to say as well as how to say it. So copywriters dig deep into your business, your story and your goals.  It’s not unusual for your copywriter to serve as your key business consultant: she understands the value you bring to your clients.

Your copywriter will help strengthen your message, capture your voice, identify your story archetype and support your brand. Professional copywriting leads to a strong online presence, where you become instantly recognizable to your clients and you gain credibility. When that happens, clients are more likely to say “yes” faster.  

A few final words:

Choose a writer who doesn’t have a big ego and a small view of the world.  Copywriting requires communication. You’ll be talking about your business to your copywriter, so you’ll need to feel comfortable sharing information that can be sensitive. Professional copywriters have thick skins; it’s okay to say, “That really sucks. How can we fix it?”

Choose ONE person to liaison with the copywriter. Want to scare away a good copywriter? Get one person on the team to say, “This looks great! Just make these few tweaks and we’ll run with it.” And then, after the copywriter makes the changes, a new person comes along and says, “The whole tone is off. Can you revise…”

Your big takeaway: It doesn’t have to be either/or. I work with lots of busy clients who like to write their own copy. They bring me on board when they feel they’re too close to the copy, they’re running out of time, or they want to see if I can help them get past a stuck place.

If you’re thinking of hiring a copywriter, check out my free report: Top 3 Big Ways A Copywriter Can Grow Your Small Business. 

Many years ago I signed up for a free online training session. The presenter (who’s gone on to become quite successful) sent everyone who attended a personalized recommendation. Then he followed up with everyone, genuinely puzzled because we hadn’t all signed up.

When we compared notes, we realized he was extremely judgmental and critical. And he didn’t even know us!   Why should we pay someone to be insulting?

I remembered the story when I saw an article with the title, “Two words to get people to open your emails.” It turned out these two words managed to judge and insult all the email recipients at once…quite a feat for a subject line.

“The two words were, “I’m curious.”

Two words loaded with meaning. 

My inbox currently holds at least a dozen emails with subject lines like, “Frankly, Cathy, I’m puzzled…Why haven’t you responded?”

Some say, “I’m curious…”

Or even, “Where were you?” I’m always tempted to write back – falsely – “in the Emergency Room getting sewn up.”

 People we’re getting to know have to give us a reason to open their messages. A generic subject line like, “Frankly, I’m curious…” might be a reason not to open the message.

And who wants to work with someone – or sell a course to someone – who doesn’t really want what we offer? Bad karma.

“Never blame the customer.”

One of the core principles of services marketing is, the customer is rarely wrong. Even if they are (say they forgot their consultation appointment) you can usually lower the odds they’ll make a mistake.

You can take payment up front (20-50% on big ticket items, with milestones)
You can send reminders of every call with the call-in info (one of my favorite coaches does this).
You can accept responsibility for unclear communications.

One consulting program offered two calls a month with emails “in between calls.” She was complaining about clients who didn’t get it. They emailed after the second call. “Don’t they know what ‘between’ means?”

The problem was, her policy was vague and inherently unfair. If you scheduled your calls a week apart, you’d get a week of emails. For the same price, if your calls were 3 weeks apart, you’d get more email times.

Why not have a clear policy – maybe “30 days of emails after the first call.”

And if someone doesn’t respond to an email offer, why not assume your offer wasn’t juicy enough or maybe something else was going on in the world?

By the way, your email list is—hands down—your most important sales-generating asset. You’ve probably noticed that the more emails you send, the more money you make, too. 

The question is, how do you balance all of those sales emails with plenty of value?

Cindy Bidar has a system for that, and you’re going to love how easy she makes it. 

In her brand new course, Email Marketing Campaigns: How to Fill Your Calendar With Engaging Offers That Get Results, she’s pulling back the curtain and showing you exactly how she consistently enjoys five-figure months (and her list isn’t that big); gets thankyou notes from readers who love her copy even when she sells; and saves effort by turning her best-performing emails into evergreen earners. This is just one of the many courses you get when you join Six Figure Systems. 

“Storytelling for business” topics tend to focus on how we use stories for marketing. But stories can be even more important in understanding the direction we want our businesses to take.

Sometimes we use business storytelling to play detective before beginning the copywriting process. And we work with stories that never get shared.

When I put together my side hustle program, I interviewed Melanie Yost, a former psychotherapist who’s now a performance coach.  She helps business owners grow their business by helping them overcome blocks and resistance. She also runs a horse-based personal development program, which I attended a few years ago and recommend highly.

One of Melanie’s favorite questions is, “What’s your story?”

For instance, someone says, “I never seem to get past the first meeting with a client.” Melanie says, “That’s your story.”

According to Melanie, stories are the way we put facts together, based on such experiences as the news media, social convention, or childhood upbringing. You can listen to Melanie’s story about how she’s grown her career and business.

When writing copy it’s also critical to understand the story your prospect tells himself or herself.

You can write especially strong copy when you understand the story she’s telling herself when she reads your page where you’re promoting a business system.

For instance, suppose your prospect is thinking, “I can’t be successful in business because I didn’t go to college.”

Her story is, “Only college graduates succeed in business.”  So she won’t buy your product because she believes, “It won’t make a difference. I can’t be successful without a degree.”

Now she’s got a solid objection to buying your program   If indeed your program helps mostly college graduates, you’d need to present the facts honestly. But if you’ve had many clients who were college dropouts, and you know this belief is holding them back, you can address the belief directly.

You might have a headline like, “Not For College Graduates Only” Or, “Build your business successfully (even if you dropped out of college and never considered yourself a student).”

In his book Tell To Win, Peter Guber shows how a customer’s story might come from a backstory. For instance, a producer needed to get Alice Walker’s approval to produce her book, The Color Purple, as a stage play. Guber coached the producer to expect resistance. Alice had gotten a negative backlash from the black community after the book was produced as a movie. The producer needed to address Alice’s backstory — not directly, but with a new story.

Business owners rarely have access to individual backstories when developing copy for websites and sales letters. But sometimes you can identify common backstories. For instance, Christina Hills targets prospects to have backstories related to building websites. Those backstories have a common theme: high expectations followed by disappointing results. You can see excellent examples on her sales page for her spring program via my affiliate link.

What are the deeply held assumptions that shape your prospects? What are their stories?

Would you like some help as you strengthen your message and get compelling copy? We’ll talk about your client’s backstory (and anything else related to your marketing) during the story version of my “borrow my brain” consultation. Click here to learn more and get started.

When I was teaching Marketing 101 to sleepy undergraduates, we used to talk about the way customers perceive differences between products and how they tolerated change. For instance, suppose you’re a car manufacturer. You want to change the design of the model you’ve been selling for the past 20 years.

But how much do you make a change?

It’s sort of like Goldilocks and those ill-mannered bears who invaded her home.

Too much innovation? You’ve lost them. On the Internet, you have just a few seconds to grab attention. You’re constantly reminded that, “A confused mind always says no.”

Too little? You’re viewed as a cookie-cutter solution or as someone who’s still stuck in an early business model.

The truth is,  people like to categorize. When they hear about your service, they want to put you into a familiar category. When you’re new, you don’t fit into a category of service. But you can fit into your client’s pain point. And that’s where backstory comes in.

Often service professionals try to come up with creative names to describe what they do. Life Energizer.Creative Catalyst. Profit Maximizer Coach. These terms make it hard to start a discussion.

Sometimes the new offer fits a new need really well. For instance, corporate executives are now hiring publicists and agents for themselves. rather than wait for companies to assign them. They want to take control of their own careers.  When your service reaches your market on this level, you can become part of a conversation easily: “I know someone who did that.” You might even get media attention, if you’re first to market with a highly desirable offer.

If your offer seems irrelevant, it won’t become a topic of conversation. I learned this lesson myself when I published my first website on the topic of relocation. My audience resisted.

Big discovery: People will hire planners for parties and weddings, but won’t hire a coach for a relocation that costs many thousands of dollars more. Logical? No: most of us can survive a bad party but if you move to a destination that’s wrong for you, you’re looking at years of misery.

The reality is, there aren’t that many relocation coaches. A lack of competition usually signals a thin market. More important, it doesn’t generate conversations like, “My relocation coach is better than anybody else’s.” The most important way to generate buzz is to get your audience to talk about their experience with you.

Eventually I learned to get people talking by focusing on their backstory.

What’s a backstory?

In his book Tell To Win, Peter Guber demonstrates the impact of a customer’s backstory.
A producer needed to get Alice Walker’s approval to produce her book, The Color Purple, as a stage play. Alice was the customer; the producer was, in a real sense, doing the selling.

Guber coached the producer to expect resistance. Alice had gotten a negative backlash from the black community after her book was produced as a movie. The producer needed to address Alice’s backstory — not directly, but with a new story.

Jack Dorsey, Founder of Twitter and Square, says their company spends a lot of time writing “user narratives.” These narratives read like a play: “They go to a coffee shop in downtown Chicago…”

Everyone can relate to the story at all levels from designers to those in “the business side of the house,” says Dorsey.

Business owners rarely have access to individual backstories when developing copy for websites and sales letters. But often you can identify common backstories, even without an intensive, high-priced research effort.

For instance, Christina Hills runs programs targeting prospects with backstories related to building websites. Those backstories have a common theme: high expectations followed by disappointing results. They go something like this:

“I’ve spent thousands of dollars on web design and have nothing to show for it but a ton of credit card debt.”

“The website looks beautiful but if I need to change one word, it’s going to cost me $65. Minimum.”

“My web developer disappeared, taking my passwords with him.”

And for my relocation service, I positioned my offer to fall under the umbrella of career change —  a topic I care about even more.

Now, that’s something people will talk about.

“Did you know IBM stands for “I’ve been moved?”
“We just moved here. My wife got an offer she couldn’t refuse.”
“My company just moved me here and I hate it.”

Why Finding The Customer’s Back Story Helps You Generate Buzz

When offering a new service, it’s often difficult for your prospects to relate your offer to their pain point. They may not even be aware they have a pain point. But what’s on their mind? What will they vent about? You got it…their story.

In fact, you may have developed your business because you have a backstory that resembles your clients’ story. Your backstory may be your origin story — the story of how and why you founded your business and why you have so much passion for helping people.

FREE: Download 17 Ways To Grow Your Business By Telling Stories

What’s the story behind your new offer? Start here with the Strategic Intensive.

Recently I was going through some old posts… I mean, really old, from when I was first learning copywriting. As a brand new copywriter, I was eager to show off what I’d learned, even before I fully understood the concepts myself. Needless to say, I’ve got a lot of cringeworthy content floating around out there.

Have you seen all those articles about updating the classics in your wardrobe and furniture? “That classic little black dress…” or “That faithful blue suit” or “the classic armchair.”

A lot of copywriting strategies work the same way. They’re tried and true….but you have to update them for today’s highly aware audience.

Here are 3 copywriting principles I learned when I was new. But now I’m careful when I use them…and I try not to use them at all.

(1) The latte factor.

When the price seems high, you can point out, “This is less than you spend on coffee every month.”

True. When you’re buying something for $97, that’s much less than buying a beverage from your local coffee shop.

But after your customer buys 3 or 4 of these offers, she’s buying the equivalent of a steak dinner, not a latte.

And frankly, not every decision comes down to, ‘Is it worth more than a cup of coffee?” I’d like my clients to compare the cost to something meaningful.

For instance, they need copy for their website. It’s unlikely they’ll trade off that morning wake-up call or a couple of pages of hot copy. But they may want to compare the cost of coaching to write DIY copy with the cost of hiring an experienced copywriter to write 5 pages of copy. (Depending on the copywriter, it’s probably 3 to 5x as much to get DFY vs DIY). And then they need to compare DFY witIh the cost of their own time.

Old guideline: Make the price seem low.
New guideline: Make the price seem meaningful.

(2) The “because” factor.

Imagine you are a busy college student, waiting in line to copy an article you need for your upcoming final exams. A stranger taps you on the shoulder: “Could I cut in? I want to go first because I’m in a hurry.”

Meanwhile, in the next line, another stranger taps on your friend’s shoulder: “Hey, could I cut in?” This stranger doesn’t offer an explanation.

Actually, you’re part of an experiment. The researcher wanted to test the power of “because.” Sure enough, those who were interrupted with a “because” story were more likely to say, “Sure, go ahead.”

Adding the “because” factor will often be persuasive. It’s a good word that doesn’t come across as sales-y or glitzy.

Today I’d still use the word “because,” but I’d make sure the reasons made sense in terms of the client’s backstory. We can go beyond, “What’s the client’s problem?” We can ask, “Why can’t they solve this problem themselves? What’s their backstory?”

Use “because” to enter the conversation in your client’s mind, not because it’s a power word.

Of course, there’s that moment when you have to explain why you’re extending a deadline or making a new offer. Most of us still feel compelled to come up with a “because” statement, even when we suspect nobody believes us.

(3) The “own voice” factor.

Many business owners believe it’s important to speak in their own voice when they create content – whether they’re building a website, writing a sales letter or developing a course. When they hire a copywriter, their first question is, “Can you make the copy sound like me?”

As a new copywriter, I embraced this idea. I encouraged clients to record hhemselves speaking on the phone. I listened to experts who advised, “Write the way you speak.”

Now I question the whole concept of “your own voice.”

My first clue came when I was writing copy for one of my favorite clients. She’d invited me to write a sales letter for her new program.

“Can you include these two paragraphs from my last sales letter?” she asked. “I really like the way they’re written.”

So I did. And I showed her the finished letter.

You probably see where this is going. She loved everything….except those two paragraphs. “I’d never use those words,” she said firmly.

So I took out the paragraphs and replaced them with my own writing.

“Perfect,” she said. “Sounds just like me.” And that’s when I learned most people don’t know how they sound on paper.

As time went on, I realized prospects were responding to the marketer’s message. They didn’t really notice the words. They looked for consistency in content.

Eventually I realized that these personas fit into five categories, which I call archetypes.

Archetypes influence every aspect of your marketing content, from the kinds of stories you tell to the way you sign off on your emails. Educator archetypes tell stories to illustrate concepts and sign their emails with something like, “Until next time.” Role models talk about the obstacles they overcame and sign their emails with something like, “To your success.” Celebrities talk about living an outsized life and sign their emails with something like, “Love and hugs.”

You can learn more about copywriting when you sign up for my course on Copywriting With Stories.